I've been reading in 2 Chronicles in my personal time and I've been struck by the number of times the writer uses references to the heart. When you think of Chronicles, most of us yawn...it sounds like a huge room full of file cabinets with some personality-free individual "chronicling" large manila envelopes. But when you read Chronicles, I'm struck at how much like Vh-1's Behind the Music this book is. On that show, every person seems to have the same story...immense success...success goes to their head...they get into drugs...career spirals downward. In many ways the kings in 2 Chronicles have similar stories...rise to power...power goes to their head...turn from God...God judges them...career spirals downward. But the one thing that separates these kings from one another is the state of each man's heart.
I'm especially touched by the story of Hezekiah in chapter 32 and how God intervened in the nation of Judah. But in verse 31 it says that God left Hezekiah alone to test him, that He (God) might know all that was in his heart. There's a similar situation in Deut. 8 where God reveals that He has been testing the Israelites to see what's in their hearts. It struck me that God can't really reveal what's in our hearts without putting us through some kind of trial. This morning I led a Bible study in Mark 5 with my small group guys...and we've been looking over the story of Jesus casting demons out of crazy man. But Jesus doesn't stop there...He sends the demons into some pigs that run off a cliff and drown. So we have a farmer who just lost his livelihood to Jesus...what do we make of this? Well, the townspeople gather around and determine that Jesus "ain't wanted around these parts". I have to ask the question, why did Jesus do this? Why couldn't he just send the demons somewhere else...why did He have to send the demons into some pigs and destroy one man's bank account? Why did he inconvenience this man? Well, I think He did it for the same reason he inconvenienced the Israelites in the wilderness and the same reason he left Hezekiah to himself in Chronicles...He did it to expose the hearts of the people. They'd rather keep their pigs than celebrate in the joy of a tormented man being redeemed. This is the time that our hearts are truly exposed for what they really are...when God inconveniences us...and we want to focus on fixing the inconvenience, instead of letting God fix our hearts.
This is truly an "inconvenient truth".
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3 comments:
are you done blogging already? oh that can't be happening...
hey, i never thought about it that way! thanks so much for taking the time to write that down!!
put some pics of landon here! i am dying to see him! :)
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